The Grrrlie Show Features Local Short Films and Live Music at the Acheron on May 25

UPDATE: We’ve added a special guest to our bill – the multi-talented solo star Idgy Dean will join the line up! Scroll down for more and watch her awesome video from Wreckroom.

This Memorial Day weekend, specifically 8pm on May 25, at Bushwick’s own Acheron – the home of the second coming of CBGB’s according to them – we’ll be hosting some of Brooklyn’s talented emerging women in rock n’ roll at our showcase: The Grrrlie Show.

The local line up features Claire’s Diary, The Tablets, Tiny Tusks, Bad Behavior and special guest Idgy Dean. The evening will combine live performances with short films by the artist Itziar Barrio between sets, which delve into feminist oriented concepts and Brooklyn’s cultural landscape.

Featured on these pages for her previous projects in Brooklyn, Itziar is a cultural force unto herself. She will screen “We Could Have Had It All” – a multi-layered digital video inspired by the Adele lyric and concert at Albert Royal Hall, which is a response to the popular lyric by a duet of poems. Basque poet Maialen Lujanbio and American writer Chavisa Woods contribute original poems in their native tongues about the concept of “having it all” inside the historic Teatro Arriaga, a theater in Itziar’s native Bilbao.

Itziar’s digital video titled RETURN interviews Crown Heights residents on the changing dynamics of the neighborhood and what they consider to be “paradise” in a neighborhood full of people originally from the tropics. We’ll screen this film and two others from Itziar’s BLUE WALL PROJECT: THE MUSIC STARTS BEFORE THE DANCE BEGINS and WE, both of which examine the ever-changing face of blocks in Williamsburg, the Lower East Side, and the historic memory that we carry within us.

The live performance line up includes some major up and coming talent, and we’ve been talking about them for a while now. Here’s who they are, in their own words. Join our Facebook event page here, and invite your friends.

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Claire’s Diary was formed when Sophie Rae and Isadora Schappell (of Care Bears on fire), Joey Koneko, and Kiri Oliver were strolling through a meadow one day and found the diary of a girl named Claire at the foot of an oak tree. Taking this diary back to their Brooklyn home, they began to sift through the pages of this mysterious diary and translate their discoveries into words and sounds that bring to mind grunge, punk, and surf-rock. Claire’s Diary played their first show at Slutwalk NYC in October 2011 and released their first recorded track, the theme song for Rookie Magazine, ‘Suzy’s Alright’, in October 2011. Claire’s Diary released their double single for “Girl Next Door” and “Build Me A Hero” in November 2012 and released their first full length album in February 2013.

The Tablets are the songs of Liz Godoy. For The Tablets self-titled debut LP she has composed and arranged, as well as co-produced the album alongside Brenden Beu (Male Bonding, Pissed Jeans, o’death). She plays live with a plethora of artists and you can find her playing as a duo or with up to seven musicians from show to show.

In early 2010, following the hiatus of her previous band ‘the fearsome sparrow’, Liz began writing a series of songs that are solely hers. The 11 tracks that make up the self-titled The Tablets debut LP, are more than the sum of their parts; upon listening, you can clearly hear Liz’s wide range of influences from 60’s garage and pop, to dark 80’s and new wave and some of her favorite childhood Mexican girl-pop dance tunes perfectly balanced with gritty shoe-gaze guitars and distorted Farfisa, giving counterpoint to her sweet understated vocals. But Godoy’s songwriting is more than that, as you will hear in the slow-tempo, obscure and heart-breaking “Armistice” and the ominous “Pray a Fight,” she’s determined to keep writing without prejudice, to genre or style.

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Bad Behavior formed in March 2012 by Alexa Schles and Cris Neglia when Alexa posted a flyer calling for a drummer that liked bands like the Pixies and Sleater-Kinney. They met up and played with two other musicians, but due to scheduling issues they fell out of touch and only rehearsed twice in 2011. A year later they met up again with no intention of starting a band and found they worked together quite well musically. They fell in punk rock love and Bad Behavior is their ugly stepchild.

Bad Behavior was born in the rehearsal space ‘The Sweat Shop’ in Bushwick after jamming out a rockin’ Black Belles cover. Alexa’s vocal style is heavily influenced by Kathleen Hanna, her lyrics, a reflection of the riot grrrl movement. Cris’ drumming style draws heavily from Brian Viglione of the Dresden Dolls, Janet Weiss, Sean Kinney & Patrick Carney. They continue to rehearse in Cris’ parents’ basement in true DIY fashion, avoiding the cost of a rehearsal space. They continue to challenge each other musically and work ridiculously hard for no reason other than their love of music. Their sound can be described as an old school surf-punk influenced collaboration with overtones of feminism, catchy indie-pop riffs and a dark edge thrown in the mix.

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Lauren, Sabrina and Natalie are the pop post punk trio Tiny Tusks. Hailing from Brooklyn, NY, the band made its way to local venues this past August and has been keeping good company ever since, sharing bills with Forgetters, Radical Dads, Mal Blum, GLTR PNCH, and Clinical Trials. Tiny Tusks are finishing up their residence in the studio, so keep an ear out for the release of their record on Bandcamp.

A one-woman psychedelic dream-pop band, with DIY beats and reveries built from the bottom up, Idgy Dean is the solo music project of Brooklynite Lindsay Sanwald. Experimenting with accumulative sound, percussion and choral arrangement, Idgy Dean builds haunted rhythm-driven songs, recorded and produced alone at home and looped live on stage.

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[…] Itziar will be showing four of her short films on May 25 at our upcoming arts showcase at the Acheron in Bushwick. Her unique short films, all under 15 minutes will screen between live performances by Claire’s Diary, The Tablets, Tiny Tusks and Bad Behavior – more here. […]